


On the Line

by jendavis



Series: Writing on the Wall [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, Delusions, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, First Kiss, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 16:02:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20623730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jendavis/pseuds/jendavis
Summary: The Losers Club defeated the clown by facing their fears.For the most part.Just because Richie's been through it twice doesn't mean it's worked.





	On the Line

People shouting, the ground _shaking_ beneath him. Richie opens his eyes just in time to Eddie above him, pulling away- 

-_but he can't, he's already_\- 

-and then, Richie remembers the future. 

\--- 

Richie rolls, dragging Eddie up and out of there, probably dislocating his shoulder in the process- no time to look for worse damage, they need to _run_\- they need the others because Eddie'd just _died_, but he'd known how to win, and if Richie's hallucinating right now it beats the alternative so he _shouts_ for Bill, for Bev and Mike and Ben. They scramble for cover, keep their eyes on each other's backs. They chant- their own words, this time. 

Slowly at first, then faster, the clown shrinks until it becomes something small, pathetic and pitiable. Until it stops being _their fears_, until it's _afraid_, instead. From there, crushing it into nothing it is so easy it feels like they might as well be going through one of those visualization exercises that therapist he'd quit going to had tried dragging him through. The only difference is this time, it fucking _works_. 

Richie knows, the moment he feels the ash slipping through his fingers, that the collapse is coming, but they run, they live. 

They all _live_. 

\--- 

Eddie's _alive_, and Richie's been remembering more and more of him by the second, but he's never known him to be the first one off the bluff and into the water, laughing all the way. Not without a count of three and Richie's right hand tugging him along. 

Glasses in his left hand like he'd always done, Richie jumps in after him- same time as everyone else, nobody will notice how quickly he'd run to the edge, sure that _this_ was where their new fate fucked them. 

But Eddie's there in the water when Richie dives down past him, and finally, it starts to sink in. They've _won_. And they're sore and filthy, and they're trying to shake off _too much_ all at once, but Eddie's _right here with them_. 

Which means that Richie's got no cause to feel like fucking breaking down over what-ifs and stupid shit that only he remembers. He hangs onto his glasses, this time, because nobody's crowding him, nobody needs to, and he's okay enough to not drop them, this time around. 

Instead, behind his glasses, he mostly hangs back where he can keep them all within view, and just tries not to blink. 

\---

When they'd been young, Eddie might've needed a hand to hold whenever they'd jumped off the bluff, but he'd been the only thing keeping Richie's head above water, most days. Eddie'd always kept such close attention to where the lines were- what was safe, and what wasn't- that crossing one accidentally had been impossible. Riche'd watched and learned all of them, he'd been fucking _thankful_ for them. 

But now, adult and alive and braver than they'd all thought, Eddie's lines aren't where Richie remembers them. From the water to the shore, back to the cars, all the way through town and up the front door of the hotel, he keeps looking at Richie like he _knows_ something. 

And for the first time in Richie's life, he can't read Eddie at all, and he's hopes like hell that the reverse is true.

Because he thinks that he's been mourning him for years- even when he wasn't dead, just mostly forgotten- and untangling the _now_ from the _then_ is even more impossible than it'd been yesterday. There's love, there'd been love; Richie thinks he might still be _in_ love with him. 

But he doesn't know if he knows how to, or whether he even should. He doesn't even _know_ Eddie as an adult, not really, not in the way that people are supposed to, where they've got frame of reference that comes from actually knowing each other now and in the present. Richie can't just shovel his ancient puppy love bullshit all over Eddie, and he _can't_ shove his _I-watched-you-die_ fuckin' _heartbreak_ at him, either. 

And he's got this this thought, this worm that keeps working through him, telling him that keeping his fuckin' trash mouth shut is the only thing _keeping_ him here. It'd worked before, he's pretty certain. But now Eddie's standing in front of him, apologizing for kissing him, telling him that one to ten, he'd do it again, and Richie's just supposed to know what the fuck to _do_ about it.

So he does what he always does, and cracks a joke. 

"So... is that between a nine and a ten, then? Or a one and a two?"

"More like an eleven." 

\---

"You can't just say that shit to people, Eds." Richie drops his eyes to the table, trying to stop his shoulders from inching in on themselves- there's no false bravado left to hold them square- and hating himself like he'd been afraid he would. 

Because yeah, everyone might've faced all their fears and defeated them or whatever- he thinks that's what happened, down beneath the well house, thinks that that's what this whole thing had been _about_\- but nobody else'd had to defeat _themselves_, and he still hasn't fucking _managed_ it yet.

"Wasn't saying it to _people_," Eddie explains. "Just to you."

"That's just- fine, fuck it, to _me_, then-" his voice catches on a whine, dog-whistle thin, and hopes that Eddie can't hear it. "You can't-"

"Why not?"

And then it all falls together. 

Eddie- _his_ Eddie- was never bold, never particularly confident. Eddie would never run laughing off the bluff, and he would never say anything like this.

This isn't his Eddie. 

"You're not real, are you?" He can feel the grimace spreading across his face, tight as the rest of him, but when he looks up at this Eddie- whatever he is- there's no gnashing, sharp teeth stretching his face apart. Just frozen apprehension, and it doesn't mean anything, because _It_ plays the long game better than anyone.

"What?"

He shouldn't explain- it'll just give the clown more fuel, and Richie's already so bone-deep _tired_, so fucking _disappointed_, that he thinks he'd rather just get it over with. He forces himself up out of his chair, but then falters. If he leaves this room, he might bring this down on everyone else's head, too, and they'd just _won_. He doesn't know where to go, what to do, how to fight.

His arms hang down at his sides; there's no good weapons close to hand anyway. "This isn't real," he tells this Eddie. "You're not him, you're _fucking_ with me and it's not _over_, is it." If he doesn't ask a question, he doesn't have to be disappointed by the answer.

"It _is_, Richie," Eddie says, and then, "we're fine, it's all right, we're safe, _you're safe_." 

He can't get angry to fight, he can't even get scared enough to run, and Richie can't move but there are tremors starting in his fingers and ankles and they're spreading- 

"No clowns, no monsters," Eddie's mouth on Eddie's face says. "Just me and you. I'm me, you're you, and we're _here_, okay?" It eases up out of his chair, keeping his hands where Richie can see them. One of them starts reaching out- to claw at him, maybe, or to spear through his chest open the way it'd done Eddie's- and he doesn't even feel himself flinch, he the hand _stop_. 

And despite everything, the clown's convincing. _That_ expression on _that_ face is so _gutting_ that Richie can't even look at it anymore, so he doesn't. It's not until his eyes squeeze down, wet, that he realizes he's been crying. 

"Fuck, Richie, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said..." Eddie's gutted fear even _sounds_ real as he continues to mutter, "...fucking letting shit go to my head, I'm an asshole. Look, we can pretend I never said anything. Nothing has to change." 

_Pretend. Don't say anything._

In one breath, Eddie's voice delineates the structures of Richie's safety the way it'd always done. He's seen him and recognized him and he's throwing him a lifeline, and _nothing has to change_, and Richie can't move but suddenly his entire _being_ is reaching out for it- 

-and Eddie, with his next breath, darts his eyes towards the door and cuts the line. 

"I'll get out of here, give you some space." 

It's _happening_, now. The clown's got him dead to rights, and he's using Eddie to show him what he wants and can't have. It's Eddie's eyes that see him flayed open, exposed down to the bone. It's Eddie's arm, eroding the raw edges of him into ash as he brushes past on his way towards the door. It's _Eddie_, leaving him. Alone and sniveling like the little bitch he'd always known, deep down, that he is. 

But then Eddie pauses, mid-leaving. "Richie? It's all right," he says, voice catching. "I'm sorry."

And here's the thing. Richie remembers killing the clown twice already. There's a lot he doesn't understand, but he knows one thing. The clown's never missed a chance to gloat. It might've been whimpering, at the end, but it had never apologized, and-

-and it's a fucked sort of hope, but-

-if he's wrong, he's- he doesn't even _know_. Maybe this really is how he goes out, twisted on his own knives, carved up on what he wants, what he can't have, what he can't even let himself even fucking _try_ for. 

It's _exhausting_. 

So fuck it. Bring it on already. 

"Don't?" 

He doesn't even know if he says it out loud. He can't even open his eyes to look, he can't stop bracing brace for impact. "I'm sorry, I'm, fuck, I'm fucked, sorry, just _don't_-"

_Please_. 

"Richie? Hey..." There's a touch on his arm, hesitant, and he wants it so bad- death or whatever it might be- that exhausted, he finds himself leaning into it, heart stumbling, again, when it doesn't hurt, doesn't give way to nothing. "Hey, it's all right, look at me."

He's alive. Eddie's alive. As long as he doesn't open his eyes, he's fine. They're fine, and he's allowed this. Schrodinger's fucking cat. As long as he doesn't look, the arms sliding around his back won't rip him apart. 

"Hey, you're all right, yeah?"

Right, _words_. Sometimes people even pay to hear him say them. 

Then again, when that happens, they've usually been written by somebody else. 

Best not to risk it, just yet. So instead, he just brings his arms up around Eddie's back, tries not to dig in too hard. One of them- he's not sure who- shifts, and suddenly his glasses are tumbling from his face to Eddie's shoulder to the floor. 

"Careful not to step on them," Eddie deadpans, not letting go. "I've had enough of those pharmacy assholes for a lifetime."

Richie's breath catches on a laugh, and then he's fucking sobbing, but fuck it, he's already scraped raw and pathetic and the second they pull away Eddie's going to be able to see his face, which probably looks like shit right now, and it's probably fucked up that _that_ thought is what has him catching his breath, but it's a step towards normalcy, at least

Eventually, he works up the nerve to open his eyes, to squint over Eddie's shoulder- mostly gets hair, and a hazy reflection in the mirror. Blurry as it is, there's nothing weird about it besides the obvious: the glaring evidence of his nervous fucking breakdown. And that Eddie, _this_ Eddie, this _real_ Eddie, is still fucking _here_.

"C'mon," Eddie prompts, his fists tight against his back, pulling on the fabric of his shirt. "You're freakin' me out, dude. Say something, all right? Tell me to fuck off or whatever." 

He can try- _God_, this is embarrassing- but he owes him that much, at least. "I'll tell your _mom_-" he starts, but then he's too distracted by the perfect feeling of Eddie laughing into his chest to finish.

The floor doesn't drop out from under him. It's all, somehow okay. 

"Sorry," he buries his face down against Eddie's neck just for a second; the strain's uncomfortable, but he can breathe in the smell of hotel soap and antiseptic. "Been a weird day."

"You think?"

"Fuck you." 

\--- 

"Don't have to do this right now," Eddie says, shifting while he watches Richie go around to open up the driver's side. 

"Says _you_," Richie shrugs, not meeting his eye as the doors unlock, and he disappears down into the driver's seat. 

Untwisting the seatbelt is a momentary distraction, right up until he becomes aware that Richie's waiting on him before pulling out of the parking spot. 

"What do you mean, says me?"

"You're not the one who just set the Guinness World Record on _blowing it_." 

"Yeah, well, I was lobbing grenades at you, things blowing up was probably gonna happen."

"True."

"Sorry about that, by the way."

"Don't be. Not your fault I'm a head case." Turning on to Post Road, Richie's grin is quick, a little nervous, like he wants to say something more. Eventually, eyes back on the road he manages it, a bit more quietly. "Or a closet case."

Suddenly, Eddie gets it, why Richie'd splashed water on his face and suggested they go out for a drive; it's the distraction. Easier to talk when you're moving fast enough to not feel trapped.

Which is probably why it doesn't feel all that awful when he spends a solid two minutes trying to come up with a response. 

"Yeah, well. Join the club. I think."

"You think?"

"Look at my life, then look me straight in the face and tell me I don't have issues. _Volumes_, even."

Richie just nods; they're crossing main, now, and that bitch Gretta is leaning against the wall in her pharmacist's jacket, smoking a cigarette. He suppresses a shudder, then spends half a mile wondering why he's bothering. Another few blocks and they're passing the turnoff to get to the well house; there's a sheriff's vehicle parked outside, tape wound around the rusted fence as if a strip of plastic is going to be what clues someone in to the fact that the collapsed horror house _might_ not be the best place to go wandering. 

The clock on the car says 2:14. HE can't remember how many time zones it's off. 

"Beverly said the reservations were for six."

"We've got time." He's not sure what it is in the words that sets that determined, resolute set to Richie's jaw. But he likes it. 

And this is getting embarrassing, the _crushing_ that he's insisting on doing. Wonders how much of it he can chalk up to having most of his teenage years wiped out of his brain for so long, then slamming back in. 

The clouds are rolling in, but since they've passed downtown and there's no reason he can think of to go to the library, it's a solid guess that the park is Richie's intended destination. 

So it's a little odd that just past the middle school, he's pulling over a quarter mile short of the turnoff, and parking the car on the gravel at the side of the road, and gets out. 

Prodding absently at the bandage on his face, which will surely freak out any kids straggling around late on the playground, Eddie follows suit, and hastens to catch up with him. 

It's not until they've started east down the trail that he realizes where they're going. 

It's not somewhere he'd spent much time as a kid. His house had been west of the school; there hadn't been any need to bike over the bridge, and, as he'd been desperately aware and thankful of, no need for anything else, either. 

Though the fact that Richie's got his hands jammed tight in his jacket pockets is making him the kind of nervous he has no idea how to deal with. 

"So..." he says, trying to think of something to say, just in case this isn't at all what he's thinking and half hoping it might be, as mortifying as it is. "You think the trail down to the fishing hole's all washed away yet?"

Richie just shrugs. And, as expected and maybe dreaded, stops by the foot of the bridge. 

It's been painted over more than once. It's been carved over more than that. And Richie, looking like he's regretted every single one of his life choices, is looking at everything besides him, quite carefully. 

"Rich?"

"Yeah?" he replies, eyes scanning the scarred bridge wall, _Audrey Loves Nathan_'s been carved at knee height, but someone's tagged over it _D x N 4-eva LOL_, evidence of recent drama in thick black marker. 

"Did you want to head over?" _Or..._

He's shaking his head, then suddenly his face is splitting, nervous energy all laughing out. He rubs his hands together maniacally and, in a cartoonishly evil voice, says, "And _this_ is where I have my revenge."

"Revenge?"

"Yeah."

"How so?"

"Uh. So. One grenade for another." His hand drops, fingers twitching towards an unevenness in the paint. "You gave me an eleven, so I counter with shit I carved into the bridge when I was twelve."

More apprehensive than he wants to be- _God_ this is embarrassing- he approaches, then leans down for a closer look. 

There, in jagged, uneven block print, _R + E_ is indented into the wood, painted over, mostly filled in. 

_It's just chance_, he decides. _He's fucking with you_.

He stands up, and realizes, with the bone deep authority only a lifetime of knowing someone can attest, that Richie looks like he's about to hurl all over the place.

_Oh._.

"You..."

Backing off- just in case- Richie nods, eyes wide behind his glasses, mouth tight. No sign of the manic flailing he would've been doing 27 years ago, though maybe that would make this easier. 

"When we were-" He can't help thinking of a blade skidding, twisting on a splinter and embedding itself into skin instead. "_When?_"

"You were grounded. Broken arm."

He's pretty sure he wouldn't have known what to say then, either. 

He probably- inevitably- would've fucked it up. And he's not out of the woods yet now, either. There are too many thoughts running through his head all at once- too much warmth in his chest for him to breathe, he wishes he had his inhaler just to buy some time, just to use it as _shorthand_ because things are different, yeah, but he thinks Richie would _get it_. 

And all he can come up with is, "How many splinters did you get?"

A flash of mortified irritation crosses Richie's face before he answers. "Two. I think."

Eddie wishes, more than anything, that he knew how to just walk up to someone- up to _Richie_\- all confident and suave. He _wants_ to. He just doesn't want to live through how badly it could go if he fucks it up. "Think you'd do any better now?"

"Honestly? I'd probably cut my thumb off."

"Huh."

There's a car going past back out on the road, and in the time that Richie spends hawkishly watching it pass, Eddie arrives at a decision. He's almost ready to actually say it, but then Richie's eyes are back on him and he's stumbling again. 

"Twenty seven years," he says. "Was there an expiration date on it?"

"I dunno," Richie shrugs, rocking back on his heels, an old, predictable move that he's not sure he's ever seen. "Is there?" 

It only takes three steps to get into his space. Nothing bad happens, though his sweating and his face feels _hot_, but Richie's watching him intently, now. He's smiling, but his eyes have a bit of that _fuck you_ bravery back again, and it's enough to keep him rooted in place. 

Eddie takes his hands out of his pockets. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. Dragging him down within range is too forward, leaving them at his sides is too awkward. "Could test it if you wanted."

"Yeah."

"Just watch the bandage," he says, relieved, and at the resulting laugh, he's in a free fall but it's the _good_ kind. Plus, Richie's hand brushes alongside his, like he's going through his own logistics. "And try not to hurl, 'cause if you go off, _I'm_ gonna, and it'll be a whole thing."

"You're such an asshole," Richie groans, and Eddie catches the tail end of it against his mouth and then they're kissing. Quick, at first, and Richie's the first one to pull back. When Eddie meets his eye, he pulls a face like he's about to puke, but he's just fucking with him, twining his fingers into Eddie's. When he leans in again, not ready to be _done_, yet, Richie's already there, and suddenly it's so damned easy just to step closer, slide his arm around his side. 

"God, this is so fucking cheesy," Richie mutters as their mouths crash awkwardly together and then find their pace, nerves giving way, then ratcheting up again at the feeling of Richie's fingers scratching lightly at his hairline. He's not sure who moves to deepen the kiss, only that it doesn't fucking matter. Richie tastes like salt fading into nothing under the awareness of his basic fucking _closeness_ and the push-pull of his lips dragging across Eddie's. 

"Not as cheesy as me re-carving 30 year old graffiti would be," he mutters, nearly gasping for air. "But do you got a knife on you?"

\--- 

Words Richie'd never thought he'd think: he doesn't want to leave Derry. Words he think he'd always thought, if he'd been aware to remember them: he never wants to leave Eddie. 

He catches himself wanting to ask for time- for _Eddie's_ time. He wants to promise him things that he's not in a position, yet, to guarantee. Because it's settling in, as the get back into the car, that they've both got lives- which don't feel as real as they used to- to start getting back to. 

There's an angry voicemail from Richie's agent that pings while they're driving back into downtown, he wants him on a redeye _tonight_; he'd already pulled a no-show for last night's flight. Seattle's in two days, and they still need to run damage control from his meltdown. Long as that works, the midwest to east coast tour is still on. 

Eddie's got a client meeting tomorrow afternoon, he says, and a divorce to plan, arrangements to make. It might be a tight couple of weeks for both of them. But Eddie's good with plans; he's meticulously entering every bit of contact information- email, Skype, fucking _snail mail_\- into Richie's phone, and emailing him a copy to boot.

But first, they've got dinner reservations with their friends in fifteen minutes, which they're going to be few minutes late to. They could make it, if he'd just step on the gas.


End file.
